On that first afternoon at the Potlatch Club, I swam in the ocean until my fingers were dry and my eyes were red from the salt, and then I came out of the water looking like I’d just washed up on shore. I lay down in my lounge chair and took a refreshing sip of homemade iced ginger tea; just when I thought I was going to sleep, a pod of dolphins appeared playing in the shallow water about 10 feet from shore.
“Look!” I yelled to no one, forgetting that I was alone on the hotel’s seven miles of pink sand. I sat up and watched mesmerized as dozens of dolphins leaped, clicking and chirping in the water, chasing schools of rainbow-colored fish.
Is it possible to find a piece of paradise for yourself? The Potlatch Club is a reimagined mid-century retreat on the rugged Bahamas island of Eleuthera, where privacy and seclusion are of the essence. Despite the fact that the 11-room hotel has attracted celebrities, British aristocrats and American oil tycoons arriving by private jet, or is a popular destination for weddings, it’s becoming a sought-after spot. (When I was there, a Texan couple was strolling around in their white blazers, tasting the menu and discussing security measures for visiting dignitaries and heads of state.) There, it’s impossible not to enjoy creating your own island and living and roaming the carefree island. Like this 12-acre estate you’re the millionaire who owns the land—even if you left your private jet at home and, like me, arrived bruised and sweaty on a bumpy flight.
This has remained the case since the advent of the Potlatch. The original resort, located on a former pineapple plantation near Eleuthera’s colorful main port, Governor’s Harbor, was founded in the 1950s by three pearl-wearing socialites from New York. The property was a private, invitation-only home: friends would visit for weeks without even seeing a bill. So despite the resort’s success and popularity with A-list stars, including Greta Garbo and Paul McCartney, who stayed there with Linda on their 1969 honeymoon and wrote The Beatles’ “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” on the hotel stationery, the Potlatch was quickly canceled.
Jamaican-born Bruce Loshusen and his Cuban-born business partner Hans Febles arrived there in 2015 after a potential hotel project on the Bahamas’ Berry Islands fell through. They were drawn to Eleuthera’s wild beauty and lack of development: The long, narrow island has more than 100 beaches but not a single traffic light.
They weren’t too happy with what was happening at the famous Potlatch Club. Decades of abandonment had taken their toll on the mid-century structure: The clubhouse was leaning and sunflowers grew on the rotting floorboards. Lokusen and Febles wondered what they could save.
Then he saw the beach.
“I will never forget when I first saw it. I had never seen such a magnificent and romantic beach in my life,” Lochusen recalled.
The pair quickly began work on the property, working with a local architecture firm to preserve as much of the original resort as possible (ultimately, four buildings were preserved) while developing plans for Potlatch 2.0, creating a new look and feel. They retained the clubhouse’s black and white floor tiles, redesigned the original swimming pool (and added an additional ocean-view infinity pool), and had it designed by Sri Lankan-born, London-trained architect Ray James Holman of Nassau Ray James Holman Nathaniels designed the floor plan. Nassau-based interior designer Amanda Lindroth added beachy color and texture to the all-white interior, with details like pink coral stone floors, mother-of-pearl inlaid nightstands, and teak and rattan furniture.
A high-end hotel like the Potlatch relies on top-notch service, and Bhutanese-born general manager Kezang Dorjee is ideally suited for the task, having worked at prestigious hotels such as the Kisawa Sanctuary in Mozambique and having worked with Keith Richards and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on tours together. At Potlatch, Dorjee has assembled an all-star staff, including executive chef Chokyi Wangmo (formerly of The Cove Eleuthera), whose menu features fresh fish from Spanish Wells and locally grown watermelons, leafy greens and, of course, Eleuthera’s famous golden pineapples, grown on the island since the 1880s.
A short walk from the hotel is the Leon Levy Native Plant Sanctuary, a 30-acre botanical garden filled with Bahamian trees and plants like wild sage and milkweed, which locals have used as “bush medicine” for more than five centuries. Just a short walk away is the lively Tipi Restaurant and Beach Bar, which has been on the island for more than 20 years, and the family-run Buccaneer Club, whose colorful owner Katherine Johnson left her time in Italy to let celebrities including Prince and Liza Minnelli know how to dress on the island.
“This place has a way of calling you home,” he said.
I can understand. On the bumpy flight to Nassau, I wiped the moisture off the window with my shirt sleeve and looked up to catch a last glimpse of the island’s pink-sand beaches and pineapple farms. Eleuthera had worked its calming spell on me, not a matter of if, but when;
